Sophie Winkleman Reveals She Didn’t Know Most Guests at Her Royal Wedding to Lord Frederick Windsor

When Sophie Winkleman tied the knot with Lord Frederick Windsor, the second cousin of King Charles III, on September 12, 2009, at Hampton Court Palace in London, about 400 people attended the royal wedding ceremony. In an interview with Tatler for its February 2024 issue, which was published online on December 28, 2023, the Wonka actress revealed that she had never met most of those guests. “I didn’t know anyone at my wedding,” she admitted. “I had my best pals there, but basically, it was full of faces I’d never seen before.”

According to Winkleman, her mother-in-law, Princess Michael of Kent, was responsible for planning the couple’s big day, which included creating the guest list. Frederick’s mother even selected the bride’s wedding dress, a silk ball gown with lace sleeves and a 10-foot train that Anna Bystrova for Roza Couture designed. The frock cost more than $6,000, but since Princess Michael was friends with the designer, they received a discount, the Daily Mail reported at the time of the wedding.

Since Winkleman had a hands-off approach to planning her nuptials, she didn't choose her hairstyle, which is why she wasn’t happy with the final product: loose waves topped with a diamond headpiece and a veil. “I was so determined not to be a bridezilla, I didn't even work out my hairstyle, and I cannot tell you how disgusting it looked,” she shared with the outlet. “Coming up the aisle, the first thing I said when I saw Freddie was, 'I'm so sorry about the hair.' He said, 'Yes, what on earth have you done?' That's pretty much all I can remember about it—my hair and being such a moron.”

After the royal wedding, the newlyweds moved to Los Angeles, where Winkleman was cast in the ninth and 10th seasons of Two and a Half Men. Since Winkleman kept her maiden name, she told Business Insider in 2021 that most of her cast mates didn’t know she was a royal. In 2013, the couple welcomed their first daughter, Maud, and shortly after her arrival, they moved back to the United Kingdom, per the publication. Three years later, Winkleman gave birth to the pair’s second daughter, Isabella. 

Winkleman and Frederick first met in 2006 on New Year’s Eve in Soho, London. At the time, Winkleman was playing Big Suze in the British sitcom Peep Show, which is how Frederick recognized her when they first crossed paths that night. “We were leaving two different parties, and we went for the same taxi,” Winkleman recalled to Tatler. “His very first words to me were, ‘You’re Big Suze! I love you!’ I looked back at this ridiculously beautiful face and thought, ‘Oh, God. Hello, everyone. I’m going to be in trouble here.’” Two years later, Frederick proposed with a diamond engagement ring that belonged to his grandmother, Princess Marina.